When NASCAR announced last month that they would leave ESPN for NBC, there were still three Sprint Cup races and 14 Nationwide Series events that weren’t part of any new broadcasting deal for 2015 and beyond. That concern has been relieved by FOX, who will add those races to their current roster of 13 Cup races along with the entire Camping World Truck Series schedule (source: L.A. Times).
As it now stands, starting in 2015, FOX will cover the first 16 Cup and 14 Nationwide races of the season, again with the entire Truck series of events – while NBC will cover the remaining 20 Cup and 19 Nationwide races. FOX will use a combination of FOX and Fox Sports 1 to telecast all their NASCAR events. NBC will use NBC and NBC Sports Network to broadcast their portion of the NASCAR season. FOX’s deal was originally to be through 2022 but they added two years to the pact to run concurrently with the NBC agreement – these are all 10 year contracts running through 2024.
The latest deal by FOX was valued at $3.8 billion. NBC’s contract is reported to be a $4.4 billion deal– making the entire 10 year financial agreement to NASCAR total $8.2 billion.
Most of these races will be carried by each of the networks ‘new’ cable channels, Fox Sports 1 and NBC Sports Network. Fox Sports 1 will formally start broadcasting on Saturday August 17th when they change over from Speed. NBC Sports Network was formerly Versus until last year. By the way, Fox Sports 1 will launch their channel with live broadcast of a Truck race from Michigan International Speedway.
Outside looking in
This leaves ESPN out of the racing business for a decade starting in 2015 -- except for NHRA drag racing. Some in the industry feel that news coverage by ESPN will significantly fall for NASCAR. Hockey coverage fell on ESPN when the NHL moved over to NBC and Versus back in 2006.
There’s a third network that has invaded the sports scene: CBS Sports Network (formerly CSTV). They have yet to make significant inroads as a sports cable channel; also, their availability to American households is limited. CBS Sports Network has mostly stayed as a college oriented platform though they have made recent efforts to expand into mainstream properties.
The notion is that fans go to ESPN first for all their sports coverage and this has been true for three decades. However now, not one but two major networks are putting huge investments in their sports cable channels, which will challenge ESPN who self-proclaims to be “The Worldwide Leader in Sports”. ESPN will now have to deal with the fact they won't be a notable carrier of two major sports (hockey and motorsports) on their network, which in turn could marginalize their position in sports coverage.
Competition growing
FOX is transforming Speed into Fox Sports 1 as a full-fledged sports-oriented television channel to compete directly with ESPN. Fox Sports 1 will have an abundance of college sports, soccer, fighting and in 2014, Major League Baseball. Furthermore, NBC Sports Network will now have two major sports to go along with Major League Soccer and a host of other sports including college football and hockey. NBC Sports Network added IndyCar last season plus Formula One this year to now become a dominant player in motorsports.
These two improved cable channels will obviously put a bite into ESPN’s supremacy in sports coverage. Could ESPN have marginalized themselves out of being the main influence in sports? They will have the rest of this year and next with NASCAR coverage so it’s going to be some time before we see the real affect of these new deals. A shift in sports coverage may be in the offing.
Additional source: NASCAR
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